earticle

영어

The Republic of Korea has had a patent scope declaration trial system. Some arguments to abolish the system have been continually raised on the following reasons: a holding of the trial has no binding effect; character of the trial is unclear; similar systems in other countries are rare. This paper demonstrates Korea’s patent scope declaration trial system is very useful for patent customers based on the following five reasons. Firstly, the patent scope declaration trial has been much loved by customers. Regarding patent and utility model scope declaration trial, each year more than 500 requests have been steadily filed. Though 11% of the requests were related to patent infringement litigations, remaining 89% of the requests were not related to such litigations. Therefore the trials have been used to confirm success of designing around, to establish powerful information for negotiation, etc. Secondly, the United Kingdom non-infringement declaration system is being emphasized recently. The UK Intellectual Property Office, based on the belief that the system is useful to customers, develops and expands the system. Thirdly, because the approval-patent linkage system was completely enforced from March 15, 2015, the scope declaration system has become more useful. A patentee may request a positive scope declaration trial to enjoy benefits of automatic stay system, and a generic drug developer may request a negative scope declaration trial to acquire generic exclusivity. Fourthly, two bills which endow the Patent Court exclusive jurisdiction on appealed patent cases are pending at the Korea National Assembly in June 2015, and the bills are highly likely to be passed. Upon the passage, a decision of the Patent Court in a trial revocation litigation appealed from a decision entered by a patent scope declaration trial will have deciding effect against a patent infringement appeal case, therefore a patent scope declaration trial and a subsequent trial revocation litigation will be more important. Fifthly, a bill which introduces damages (up to three times) enhancement system into the Korea Patent Act is pending at the Korea National Assembly in June 2015. Even though it is not likely for the bill to be passed in this term, this author believes and hopes that the bill be passed in the near future. Under the damages enhancement system, a company which intends to prevent willful infringement finding may more actively exploit the scope declaration trial. Based on the above five reasons, the scope declaration trial may keep enhancing its popularity among patent customers. From now on, being away from useless discussion on usefulness of the system, we must try to develop it as a more user-friendly system.